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Ethnomethodology is an approach to sociological research founded in the 1960s by Harold Garfinkel and developed by Harvey Sacks and many others. Early initiatives challenged the more abstract types of social theory, and developed distinctive methodological initiatives for a sustained programme of empirical research on social and communicative actions. This four-volume set includes selections that discuss and exemplify how ethnomethodologists use observations, analyses, and interventions to gain insight into larger questions of social order and the organization of practical.

Section One: Background on Social Scientific and Everyday Methods

Section Two: Ethnomethodology and the Practical Resolution of Methodological Problems

Features of Signs Encountered in Designing a Notational System for Transcribing Lectures

C. Pack

Textually Mediated Social Organization

D.E. Smith

Ethnomethodology and Literature: Preliminaries to a sociology of reading

A.W. McHoul

Taking Account of the Hostile Native: Plausible deniability and the production of conventional history in the Iran-contra Hearings

D. Bogen and M. Lynch

The interweaving of Talk and Text in a French Criminal Pre-Trial Hearing

E. Gonzalez-Martinez

Section 5: Language, Categories and Membership

On the Analyzability of Stories by Children

H. Sacks

A Tutorial on Membership Categorization

E.A. Schegloff

Discussion Note: Reading 'A tutorial on membership categorization'

A. Carlin

Studying the Organization of Action: Membership categorization and interaction analysis

G. Psathas

Membership Categorization Analysis: An introduction

S. Hester and P. Eglin

Human Practices and the Observability of the "Macro-Social"

J. Coulter

Categorization, Authorization and Blame Negotiation in Conversation

D.R. Watson

Section 6: Studies of Work

Evidence for Locally Produced, Naturally Accountable Phenomena of Order, Logic, Reason, Meaning, Method, etc. in and as of the Essential Quiddity of Immortal Ordinary Society (I of IV): An announcement of studies

H. Garfinkel

'Preface' and 'Beginnings' to Ways of the Hand

D. Sudnow

Ethnomethodological Policies and Methods

Harold Garfinkel

Toward an Investigation of Primitive Epistopics

M. Lynch

The Work of a Discovering Science Construed with Materials from the Optically Discovered Pulsar

H. Garfinkel, M. Lynch and E. Livingston

The Work of a (Scientific) Demonstration: Respecifying Newton's and Goethe's theories of prismatic color

D. Bjelic and M. Lynch

The Context of Proving

E. Livingston

Demonstrating ''Reasonable Fear'' at Trial: Is it science or junk science?

S. Burns

Section 7: Action as Algorithm - Computer Supported Cooperative Work

Artificial Intelligence as Craftwork

L.A. Suchman and R. Trigg

Sociologists Can be Surprisingly Useful in Interactive Systems Design

I. Sommerville, T. Rodden, P. Sawyer and R. Bentley

Representations and Requirements: The value of ethnography in system design

R.J. Anderson

'Technomethodology': Foundational relations between ethnomethodology and system design

G. Button and P. Dourish

Designing with Ethnography: A presentation framework for design

J.A. Hughes, J. O'Brien, T. Rodden, M. Rouncefield and S. Blythin

Design in the Absence of Practice: Breaching experiments

A. Crabtree

Ethnography Considered Harmful

A. Crabtree, T. Rodden, P. Tolmie and G. Button

Section 8: Ethnomethodology and Social Institutions

Against Our Will: Male interruptions of females in cross-sex conversation

C. West

Between Micro and Macro: Contexts and other connections

E.A. Schegloff

What Time is it, Denise?: Some observations on the organization and consequences of asking known information questions in classroom discourse

H. Mehan

The Discovery of Situated Worlds: Analytic commitments, or moral orders?